New Haven Anchor Spa is back, and yes it really did start as the Anchor Spa

Restaurant reopens as the Anchor Spa

By Mary O’Leary moleary@nhregister.com @nhrmoleary on Twitter

Published
8:17 pm EDT, Friday, July 15, 2016

Karl Franz Williams of New York City, at right, owner of Anchor Spa at 272 College St., with his manager and partner, Dimitrios Zahariadis of Waterbury, have crafted a variety of mixed drinks inspired from ports around the globe and small plates with a focus on seafood and local game. less

Karl Franz Williams of New York City, at right, owner of Anchor Spa at 272 College St., with his manager and partner, Dimitrios Zahariadis of Waterbury, have crafted a variety of mixed drinks inspired from ... more

Photo: Catherine Avalone — New Haven Register

Photo: Catherine Avalone — New Haven Register

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Karl Franz Williams of New York City, at right, owner of Anchor Spa at 272 College St., with his manager and partner, Dimitrios Zahariadis of Waterbury, have crafted a variety of mixed drinks inspired from ports around the globe and small plates with a focus on seafood and local game. less

Karl Franz Williams of New York City, at right, owner of Anchor Spa at 272 College St., with his manager and partner, Dimitrios Zahariadis of Waterbury, have crafted a variety of mixed drinks inspired from ... more

Photo: Catherine Avalone — New Haven Register

New Haven Anchor Spa is back, and yes it really did start as the Anchor Spa

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NEW HAVEN >> The Anchor is back — way back.

The storied dive bar, a favorite of college students and townies alike, is once again the Anchor Spa, the original iteration before it was the Anchor Restaurant.

New owner Karl Franz Williams has reopened it 18 months after the restaurant closed, combining the laid-back vibe of the recent decades with the atmosphere of the 1940s, when it was visited by locals as well as the stars working across the street at the Shubert Theater.

“When it was first opened, it was a very swanky place. It was a cocktail bar right after Prohibition, a great drinking and watering hole,” Williams said as the after-work crowd started to arrive one evening this week.

“All we really wanted to do was to bring it back to its original glory. That is the main goal we set. We wanted a place that combined old with new in a way that was fun,” Williams said, as his general manager and mixologist, Dimitrios Zahariadis, did his thing.

If you want a beer, a glass of wine or a rum Coke, it’s yours for the asking, but Zahariadis and Williams spent the last seven months creating a cocktail menu with a theme connected to port cities.

“It’s a lot of trial and error,” Zahariadis said.

Lined up for us was the “Heading West,” so far one of the most popular, which is themed to be evocative of England.

It has Plymouth Gin, house-made lime cordial and “seafoam” made from cucumber juice, salt and dry vermouth. An image of an anchor appears from a cutout sprayed with Angostura bitters.

Piraeus, Greece, was the inspiration for “The Legend,” which has Metaxa 5-Star Brandy, black cherry liqueur, honey, thyme, lemon and Old Fashioned bitters. It is served in a ceramic version of the iconic Greek diner coffee-to-go cup, the Anthora.

“The idea is about execution. The quality of what we are putting out is a big deal for us. We put a lot into every cocktail,” Williams said.

There are some 10 cocktails and as many small plates featuring mainly fish dishes from the Eastern and Western hemispheres. More will be added later, as well as brunch and lunch as business increases.

The cocktails are $13, while the dishes range from $10 to $16. There is room for 20 at the bar and 36 at the tables and booths.

Executive Chef Jose Gonzalez, who has 20 years’ experience, created the small plates, such as Pesce Puttanesca — pan-seared halibut served over cannellini bean puree, topped with Puttanesca sauce, fried capers and olive oil.

He also presented seared scallops, which were served over sautéed Brussel sprouts with a ginger brown butter sauce; Asian spiced duck breast with braised Chinese eggplant and ginger chili glaze; and grilled octopus with charred fennel, Greek olive oil and oregano.

The Anchor closed suddenly on Jan. 4, 2015, much to the dismay of residents and preservationists, who pushed to keep it pretty much intact, particularly the neon Anchor sign, the porcelainized blue metal facade, an example of Art Moderne design, and the interior booths.

Local historian and trained architect Colin Cap­lan helped advise Williams as he renovated the property. He was the one who showed him a 1940 photo of the bar when it was called the Anchor Spa, speculating the original name was probably still there, hidden.

Williams uncovered it and kept the rest of the facade, too. The blue booths remain, as does the tin ceiling. He had hoped to put a wine cellar in what was the Mermaid Room downstairs, but the building department nixed the idea.

One whole wall has New Haven vintage goods curated by Brittany Solem of the English Building Markets on Chapel Street that are for sale.

Carol Orr, owner of the markets, which is now branding itself as EBM Vintage, said Williams’ architect contacted her about a collaboration.

“We’re a great mix,” she said. “They are time-travel kinds of things,” she said of the glassware, bar equipment, mirrors and pottery on display.

The Moore family, which was the last to run the bar, has the neon Anchor sign and the cash register, while Caplan bought the bar. He said he hopes to sell it someday to the right restaurant that will put it back in use.

The mirrors and wooden trim on the main wall were removed, exposing original brick. The floors and tables are crafted from reclaimed wood from Amish country, Williams said.

He said the nine months it took for all the woodwork to be completed is the main reason for the delay in opening the bar, the third one owned by Williams.

After graduating from Yale in 1997, he worked as an engineer for two years and then 10 years in brand management for Proctor & Gamble and PepsiCo. Working on the next great Pepsi concept, he started talking to mixologists for inspiration.

“I was blown away. I loved it. It was very cool,” Williams said. “I thought a mixology bar would be the way to go.”

Two years later, he opened 67 Orange Street, inspired by one of the first black-owned bars in New York, and then Solomon & Kuff’s Rum House, which refers to the sons of a slave, Venture Smith, who eventually bought their freedom and his before settling on Long Island and then Connecticut.

Now, Williams, 40, is leasing the Anchor space, which is owned by Yale University. Both New York bars are in Harlem and all three restaurants have similar pricing, with cocktails and small plates on the menus.

“People who come in want to try something interesting. You have to be a little bit adventurous, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We want this to be a ‘come in, have a good time’ place,” Williams said of his latest business endeavor.

He said so far there is no one demographic represented among clientele who have stopped by to check out the space.

This week, at one end of the bar near the window was Zachary McGraw, 26, a graduate student in geophysics, dressed in a suit and a straw hat, who seemed to have time-traveled himself.

“Zachary gives us street cred,” said Zahariadis.

While there were a lot of newcomers, Darren Sutphin, who works at Yale, was also there.

Sutphin said he has been coming to the Anchor since 1987 and has definitely missed it the past year and a half.

He was nostalgic about the old days, but he was willing to give this new version time to grow on him.

Zahariadis said New Haven reminds him of New York with many people walking to the bar or using Uber.

“People tend to let their hair down a little more and not worry about getting in trouble,” Zahariadis said.

In a city with many restaurants offering craft beer, there are fewer focusing on cocktails, which he views as “friendly competition.”

“One of the things I like about what I have experienced so far here in New Haven is all the other business owners have been so warm. They all came in and had drinks. The Owl Shop and then Elm City Social — they have been great to us,” he said of his immediate neighbors.

Williams also singled out Ordinary around the corner on Chapel Street and bartender Tim Cabral.

“I think so highly of Tim. The people who do Ordinary have been just really supportive. Tim was always encouraging, always supportive,” he said.

“I don’t know if there is another corner like this in Connecticut where you could have this good of a drinking experience. This is like the East Village in Manhattan,” Williams said.

Zahariadis, 39, leads the cocktail program in collaboration with Williams.

Part of a third-generation family of restaurateurs in Waterbury, Zahariadis is co-owner of the Highland Brass Co., a cocktail bar in Waterbury.

He won the Best Craft Cocktail for the Town Plot Collins (Don Q Rum, lime juice, watermelon soda from Avery’s and a mint simple syrup) at the fifth annual Faith Middleton Food Schmooze Martini Competition last year.

Zahariadis will soon visit family in Greece for the baptism of his one-year-old daughter, Ava Despina Zahariadis.

While there, he will do a shift at Clumsies in Athens, the No. 22 bar in the world, according to the World’s 50 Best Bars website.

“I will be featuring cocktails from the Anchor Spa there one night, as a guest,” he said. His second guest appearance is at the Red Sky Bar on the island of Kos.

The grand opening will be after Labor Day, but they will be putting out a fuller menu soon.

“I’m not bragging, but if you come here once, you will come back again,” Williams said. “I want this bar to be here another 80 years.”